Mount Dye Channel Change Request: regular vs spooky

The core mount skins that we have in the game have little customization, a single dye channel that does not affect the whole mount and delivers some painful customization issues regarding the successful ability to dye your mount the way you wish. Raptor is the most egregious of the five mounts because even when you attempt to dye it a different colour, the red scales underneath will dilute or even be stronger than the dye you put into the game, but all mounts suffer from the lack of ability to dye them.

Then the spooky mounts were introduced, four dye channels that allow you to customize the entire mount as you wish, altering every part of the mount and even the mist and glowing eyes that it emanates from the mounts.

So it's clear that the mounts are fully capable of being dyed all over, Anet has just decided for absolutely no good reason that the regular mount skins should not be fully customizable. This is unacceptable. Plain and simple and it's honestly a little unethical to hang the ability to fully customize your mount on mount skins rather than give players the choice to customize their mounts as is. And honestly? same with the basic glider too.

Anet needs to change the basic mount and glider skins to allow them to be fully cuztomizable dye channel wise. It's clear that they can be fully customizable, but the only reason they aren't is to promote their skins that are fully dyeable.

And to make absolutely clear, my issue is NOT with the availability of glider and mount skins. The skins are fine as is, but it's troubling that basic mounts and gliders cannot be fully dyed where other skins can be, condemning the player to be forced to spend gems (whether acquired via lots of play time or with real world money) to truly get the ability to show their favourite colours. At least with the basic glider, make the single dye channel change the colour of the entire glider and not the tinest sliver on the border of it, but mounts need four dye channels and those dye channels CANNOT be sold on the gem store either, they should be available to the playerbase for free.

I don't believe it's 'unacceptable' nor that ArenaNet 'needs' to change anything. I understand some players would appreciate more or different features to come standard in ArenaNet's game, but, after all, it is ArenaNet's game and I believe they can monetize certain features as they see fit.

Just like with many things in life, we have the choice to pay extra for improvements over the basic model.

Good luck.

It's not about asking for more or different features to come standard, it's asking for something to be standardized across all skins.

I get that arenanet can charge as they see fit, but it's definitely predatory to some degree to disallow basic customization where it's allowed on most other skins (for gliders and I can only assume for future mount skins as well), especially in a game colloquially called "fashion wars 2". Having more dye channels for the basic mounts and extending the dye channel for the basic glider to the whole glider instead of the border isn't asking for "more or different features".

The base mounts should have 2 dye channels at bare minimum, one for the base color and the existing one for the accents, especially considering how badly most of them take dye (the raptor is the worst of them, even the brightest dyes look like washed out garbage on it).

I’d be more sympathetic to your argument if gems were from cash only, but seeing as you can buy gems with gold and since the game hands you gold for minor effort, I’m not particularly sympathetic. I bought the mount skins with gold that the game gave me for logging on and playing and anyone else can do the same.

I hope they add some good general purpose mount skins with multiple dye channels. Silly gimmicky seasonal skins I'll be bored with after a few weeks are a no sale.

I disagree. The mounts we got were free and the BASIC mounts. Therefore it makes sense they have less features and makes sense you have to upgrade using gold or gems for better things. It doesn't make sense to give you the best features for free nor should they cater to your fashion wars right from the get go. Why should the raptor, springer, skimmer, jackal and griffon not have their own natural colors? They are immersive actual creatures we learn and interact with. These extra gem shop purchases are actually the unrealistic non immersive extras and bragging rights. These should not be made available in our basic mounts. Just because they can make it have one or four or sixteen dye channels doesn't mean all of a sudden it needs to be your definition of equal and fair like some form of communism?

@takatsu.9416 said:I disagree. The mounts we got were free and the BASIC mounts. Therefore it makes sense they have less features and makes sense you have to upgrade using gold or gems for better things. It doesn't make sense to give you the best features for free nor should they cater to your fashion wars right from the get go. Why should the raptor, springer, skimmer, jackal and griffon not have their own natural colors? They are immersive actual creatures we learn and interact with. These extra gem shop purchases are actually the unrealistic non immersive extras and bragging rights. These should not be made available in our basic mounts. Just because they can make it have one or four or sixteen dye channels doesn't mean all of a sudden it needs to be your definition of equal and fair like some form of communism?

I get disagreeing, but you're seriously going to suggest that asking for more dyes on basic mounts is some form of communism?

@castlemanic.3198 said:

I get disagreeing, but you're seriously going to suggest that asking for more dyes on basic mounts is some form of communism?

Not the authoritarian system of communism but the ideal of everyone needs to have everything shared equally communism, yes, I think thoughts seem to be aligned that way, rather than work for gems and gold to upgrade and improve etc.

@takatsu.9416 said:

@castlemanic.3198 said:

I get disagreeing, but you're seriously going to suggest that asking for more dyes on basic mounts is some form of communism?

I still don't understand the huge leap in logic here. You're free to your own opinion but that's objectively not the case, since dye customisation is available everywhere in the game, even on clothing you get upon initial character creation, most gliders and even mounts, asking for the current system, as is, to simply add more dye channels to basic mounts does not, in any way, shape or form, adhere to any form of communism no matter what form of logic you try to apply to it. It's not asking for all mounts to be available to all players, it's not asking for the mastery system to be given to every player, it's asking for more customisation on basic mounts. Communism, no matter what logic applied to it, has no part in this.

@takatsu.9416 said:I disagree. The mounts we got were free and the BASIC mounts.Really? I had to buy an expansion for them.

@takatsu.9416 said:I disagree. The mounts we got were free and the BASIC mounts.

Free? Last time i looked, the grffon did cost 250g...

I'll be honest, I do not entirely mind the devs requiring that you make a purchase to be able to fully color the mounts. I think that the existing options are good enough for the "free" version, although I would certainly love to see at least one more channel.

What I DO want to see, however, is them to release "Colorful" mount skins in the gem store, which have 2-4 dye channels, allowing you to recolor every major color on the mounts, and do so cleanly, but using the original texture patterns. I would expect these to be cheaper than the Halloween ones though, since they don't use a new pattern, and don't have the special effects. I would expect these to be in the "cheapy" category of items that seem to exist just to nudge players into spending a tiny bit of gems.

Where they would completely lose my good will on this is if they try to release things like the "white/black/parrot/hawk" wings they put out near HoT's launch, where they were all basically the exact same model, with relatively minor color variations, rather than just releasing a single model that you could dye channel. If they try to release like a Springer that is identical to the default, except instead of brown fur as a base he has white, or black fur as a base, but still just one dye channel, well, kitten that.

@takatsu.9416 said:I disagree. The mounts we got were free and the BASIC mounts. Therefore it makes sense they have less features and makes sense you have to upgrade using gold or gems for better things. It doesn't make sense to give you the best features for free nor should they cater to your fashion wars right from the get go. Why should the raptor, springer, skimmer, jackal and griffon not have their own natural colors? They are immersive actual creatures we learn and interact with. These extra gem shop purchases are actually the unrealistic non immersive extras and bragging rights. These should not be made available in our basic mounts. Just because they can make it have one or four or sixteen dye channels doesn't mean all of a sudden it needs to be your definition of equal and fair like some form of communism?

Free? My gold balance would disagree. You get the raptor but after that you pay.

There are spooky mounts on the gem store now? Cool.

Did you see the base glider in HoT? It's a poo stained rag. Of course they are going to make the default bland to encourage people to buy a skin. It's a clearly intentional business decision.

@Manasa Devi.7958 said:

@takatsu.9416 said:I disagree. The mounts we got were free and the BASIC mounts.Really? I had to buy an expansion for them.

Agree with this. Mounts were one of the big selling points for PoF. Saying they were "free" isn't entirely accurate.

@Manasa Devi.7958 said:I hope they add some good general purpose mount skins with multiple dye channels. Silly gimmicky seasonal skins I'll be bored with after a few weeks are a no sale.

Right, I am sure most people are buying them now for 4 channels. They will probably look strange by late november though.

I think a reflection we should all make is, if I had the choice between having the base mount skin with 4 dye channels, and having the spooky mounts, also with 4 dye channels, both for free, which one would I pick? The choice is made for me: the base models look mutch better.Even if you prefer the base model, you're forced to buy skins if you wish to customize them.

Also, don't act like more dye channels for mounts weren't a feature everyone asked since PoF beta...

I bought the spooky mounts mostly for the dye channels. I would feel a little robbed if they changed a mount of dye channels for basic looks. But on the other hand it wouldn't bother me too much anyway, but others maby do mind.

@castlemanic.3198 said:So it's clear that the mounts are fully capable of being dyed all over, Anet has just decided for absolutely no good reason that the regular mount skins should not be fully customizable.

I agree with your post in general. But I think that the reason is clear why Anet decided to give us the EXTREMELY limited dying ability on base mounts: money. And I also posit that unfortunately this reason is very good for them which is why they made it.

For this reason I will not be purchasing ANY mount skins going forward. Anet could have been less money-grubbing and at least allowed us the 4 dye channels for the base mounts with a higher visibility of the dye. Instead it seems like they chose the bare minimum dyability they thought they could get away with in order to make their gemstore skins more desireable. Well this has backfired for me at least as I will not purchase a single one.

@Esquilax.3491 said:Did you see the base glider in HoT? It's a poo stained rag. Of course they are going to make the default bland to encourage people to buy a skin. It's a clearly intentional business decision.

This was my thinking as well. The base mounts are well designed enough that you'd hardly feel a need to purchase skins if you could fully dye them. This I actually find preferable to the monetizaton of glider skins, where the base glider was both dreadful looking and barely dyeable.

Would have been great if they were more open-handed with mount customization, but I can live with this.

Can agree that I'd like to see the base mounts with at least 1 more dye channel, but it isn't essential for me. I would like to be able to color the underside of the raptor, but at the same time I see some disadvantages to that.

• ANet probably wants to sell skins for them (with more dye channels)
• This actually has one positive side effect for me, less players running around with bright white, shadow black, sharp orange pinata looking mounts.
• If they do this, I also want an option somewhere to force default colors on other players mounts (and everything else players does, sick of looking at the circus freak-show)

I'm glad they're doing them in theme packs rather than seperately.I bought the Spooky mounts as soon as I patched. I didn't even know they'd have 4 dye channels. I bought them because I wanted what they showed, having the 4 dye slots was the bonus for me. I'd only buy another skin pack if they did a ghostly/spirit theme.

I requested after the 1st demo weekend that the base mounts should have 2 dye slots, I still think they should aswell, but that is upto the devs whether to change this or not.

@"Ohoni.6057" said:What I DO want to see, however, is them to release "Colorful" mount skins in the gem store, which have 2-4 dye channels, allowing you to recolor every major color on the mounts, and do so cleanly, but using the original texture patterns. I would expect these to be cheaper than the Halloween ones though, since they don't use a new pattern, and don't have the special effects. I would expect these to be in the "cheapy" category of items that seem to exist just to nudge players into spending a tiny bit of gems.

Where they would completely lose my good will on this is if they try to release things like the "white/black/parrot/hawk" wings they put out near HoT's launch, where they were all basically the exact same model, with relatively minor color variations, rather than just releasing a single model that you could dye channel. If they try to release like a Springer that is identical to the default, except instead of brown fur as a base he has white, or black fur as a base, but still just one dye channel, well, kitten that.

I like your idea. Can you post it in the Gemstore Suggestions thread?

I posted my own suggestion for the base mounts here. But mine was being able to buy a One-time purchase of an additional dye channel for the base mounts, either for each, or in a bundle.

Anet has to make money somehow. We don't pay for a subscription, so they monetize customization and aesthetics. I prefer this to monetizing power which is what other games do.

If you want 4 color channels on your mount then buy gems, either with gold or cash it helps the game development or to balance the economy. I see no problem with this.